


bathed in starlight

by wolfwithpanthereyes



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Academy Era, Established Relationship, Fluff, Inspired By Tumblr, M/M, Motorcycles, Stargazing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-01-21
Packaged: 2018-09-18 23:19:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9407333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfwithpanthereyes/pseuds/wolfwithpanthereyes
Summary: ("date a girl who will drag you outside at 3 am to look at the stars""If anyone and I mean anyone, even Jesus Christ himself, wakes me up at 3am to go look at the damn sky they will be removed indefinitely from my life")Leonard was going to murder Jim.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PeterHaleforAlpha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeterHaleforAlpha/gifts).



> Inspired by [this post here](http://afoxnamedmulder.tumblr.com/post/156034094642/dukewuornos-commandtrek-jordynslefteyebrow).
> 
> Happy birthday Dukey, I hope you like this bit of fluff! <3

Leonard was going to murder Jim. 

It wasn’t even a question anymore; the moment Jim paused the bike, Leonard was 100% going to strangle him and drag the body behind the nearest bush, where Jim could then enjoy a noble afterlife being ripped into tiny fleshy pieces by any circling vultures. 

In the meantime, Leonard was going to cling onto Jim’s waist and shove his face against the back of Jim’s jacket so he wouldn’t have to watch the world _swoosh_ by at a speed no machine on Earth should be capable of. Not without at least an inch-thick plate of glass between the passenger and the outside, anyway. 

“Isn’t this great, Bones?” Jim shouted, the words catching in the wind and whisking away almost before Leonard could process them. “Just you, me, and the open road!” 

Leonard was going to throw up over all three of those if Jim didn’t start _slowing the fuck down_ , and he promptly yelled this at Jim to make sure he knew it too. 

Jim, to his credit, did slow down. Barely. “Aww, c’mon Bones! Aren’t you enjoying this?” 

Leonard’s cheeks were sticky from where they had been smooshed into leather and bitingly cold from the air whipping them. “You woke me at 3am, told me you had something to show me not far from here, then took off for God-knows-where! This isn’t ‘not far from here’, this is _very_ far from here!”

“And you’ll thank me once you see why!” Jim revved up the engine again. In a panic, Leonard threw himself further forward, arms wrapped so tightly around Jim’s waist it’s amazing Jim hadn’t popped in half already. Leonard had been on the back of Jim’s motorcycle before, but those were only brief trips across campus and occasionally into San Fran. This is the first time Jim has taken to the open road and absolutely _floored_ it, and Leonard can’t say he’s especially thrilled by any of this. 

He could have been still sleeping, tucked safe in his dormroom and blissfully unaware that the alternative was potentially crashing to his death on a highway. But Jim had said it was urgent, and Leonard, who had known this kid for a grand total of two years and was willing to follow him to the stars, reluctantly shoved on some clothes and went along with it. 

Jim apparently not knowing the difference between ‘urgent’ and ‘joyride’ was good enough reason for murder. Leonard would have to remember that in case the body was eventually found and he was brought in for questioning. 

The bike veered suddenly to the left. Leonard squeaked in alarm before he could stop himself. 

“Bones!” Jim exclaimed, sounding for all the world like this was the best thing he had ever experienced in his entire existance. “Was that-” 

“Shut up, kid!” Leonard snarled, jabbing a thumb into Jim’s hipbone and grateful for the first time that Jim couldn’t turn to look at him. 

Jim wisely didn’t say anything, but unwisely he laughed, and the thoughts of murder only increased. 

Not long after, the bike finally - _finally!_ \- came to a stop. Leonard, trusting Jim to park it appropriately, promptly tried to clamber off the thing at record speed and instead fell flat on his ass. 

“God, Bones!” Jim stepped off the bike with more grace than he had a right to. “You okay?” 

“Oh, just fine!” Leonard thought about standing up, but the second he righted himself his stomach jolted and he allowed himself to sprawl back into the dirt. “Damn fine, kid, and I’m gonna kill you the moment I stand up.” 

Jim, with no sense of self-preservation, held out his hand. “Love you too, old man.” 

Leonard glared at it.

Then, because apparently Leonard had no sense of self-preservation either, his fingers grasped at Jim’s and he allowed himself to be yanked upright. 

“There you go,” Jim said encouragingly, placing both hands on Leonard’s roughed cheeks and pressing a quick kiss to the tip of his nose. “We’re here, we’re alive, and I’m gonna show you something awesome.” 

The panic beating in Leonard’s chest from the near-death ride melted instantly, leaving behind something gooey and warm. Dammit, now he’d have to put off murdering Jim until he could muster the appropriate rage again. 

Jim reached for Leonard’s hand again and this time Leonard didn’t hesitate, fingers curling through Jim’s and holding tight as Jim led him over to a picnic table.

A picnic table. Right. Leonard’s neck cricked as he finally looked around, taking in their location. Aside from the dirt space Jim had parked the bike in, the clearing was covered in grass painted silver by the light of the moon overhead and framed by the silhouettes of what Leonard dearly hoped were trees. 

“What’s so urgent about this?” Leonard said, trying not to sound ungrateful. The words came out as a grumble anyway. “There’s a table. There’s trees. What else?” 

Jim grinned at him - the moon was full enough that Leonard was able to _see_ , that was a plus - and promptly lay down on the top of the picnic table, probably getting fifty instant splinters. “Lie down with me.”

“How about no?” 

“How about yes,” Jim said, tugging Leonard’s hand encouragingly. “Please?” 

Nose kiss or not, Leonard had half a mind to lecture Jim about the sheer impoliteness of dragging one’s best friend/roommate/boyfriend from well-deserved sleep into the middle of nowhere with zero warning. The other half of his mind won over and he reluctantly sank down next to Jim, dry paint crackling under his shoulders as he shifted to get comfortable. 

Jim’s hand squeezed his own. A reward for going along with yet another of his schemes instead of playing the responsible adult figure. 

“Look up,” Jim said softly. 

Leonard did so. 

When Leonard had been a child, he had stumbled on an episode of some old show that had been popular centuries ago. The effects were laughable, the babbled technological explanations even more so. There had been one scene, though, where the stars had shimmered and rolled until they resembled a painting. And Leonard had stared, open mouthed, and immediately gone off determined to capture his own stars with some crayons. He may have seen the rest of that episode, he may have missed it. The memory was hazy, but Leonard remembered the stars. 

He wanted to stretch out and catch the stars shining above him and Jim now, find a canvas to display them so he could look at them forever. 

“Beautiful, aren’t they?” Jim’s voice was still soft. Hushed. As if the sky stretched taut above their heads, covered in its pinprick stars and swollen moon, was for them alone. “Just think, Bones, that’ll be us one day soon. You and me, up there.” 

Leonard hadn’t given too much thought to the fact that someday, if all went well, Jim and him would actually end up in space. He had been drinking when he filled out his application to join Starfleet, bitter from a divorce and willing to prove to Joyce and the world that he could actually _do_ something with his life. Even now, throwing himself into academy work was an easy distraction from the all-too-real knowledge that he would one day be stranded among the constellations. He gripped Jim’s hand tighter. 

“We’ll go there,” Jim added, raising his free hand and pointing to a cluster of stars. 

“Is that a specific planet direction, or…?” 

“Random.” Jim dropped his arm across his stomach, sounding pleased with himself. “We’re gonna explore, Bones. Go places no-one has ever gone before.” 

Leonard stared at the emptiness above and tried to picture how Jim saw it. As a place to run to, rather than something Leonard wanted to appreciate from a healthy distance. “And then what?” 

Jim rolled onto his side. Leonard turned his head, flaky paint pressing into his cheek. Jim’s smile was lit by moonlit, his irises silvery in contrast to the dark pupils. He looked inhuman. Alien. “And then I’ll make out with you on planets where no-one has ever made out before.”

“ _Jim_.” 

“You can’t tell me that wouldn’t be romantic,” Jim teased, and he kissed Leonard’s nose again. 

“That the only reason you wanna drag me out with you?” Leonard grumbled with a great deal more of affection than he had expected to show. He pulled their joined hands up to his mouth and trailed Jim’s knuckles over his lips one by one. 

“I’d want you even if we were gonna be earth-bound the rest of our lives. I need my Bones to live, after all.” 

“I’ll break them if you pull a stunt again like you did tonight,” Leonard said lightly.

Jim winced. “Ouch. Harsh.” 

“You’d deserve it.” Leonard kissed the back of Jim’s hand. “You wake me in the dead of night to come watch stars with you, nearly killing me in the process. Nearly killing you too, since that’s an incentive to murder if I’ve ever heard one. Could’ve been a real tragedy. What a damn romantic you are.” 

“You love it,” Jim said, patting Leonard’s cheek and ignoring the very stars overhead he had been so determined for Leonard to see. 

“Yeah,” Leonard said without hesitation. He let go of Jim’s hand and shifted onto his side, careful not to fall off the table edge as he curled his hand around Jim’s neck, letting the weight of his palm settle across Jim’s nape. Jim’s eyes shone in a way that had nothing to do with any external light and a moment later Leonard leaned in to kiss him. A brief and gentle kiss, both of them bathed in starlight.“Yeah, reckon I do.”

**Author's Note:**

> The scene with the stars is of course [ this one here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJ_HSJBmLQM) \- ignore the logic of Bones just happening to watch an episode from a show made centuries earlier, I remembered this scene while writing and couldn't resist.


End file.
